Company: The Deleted Scenes
by madamefaust
Summary: Based on prompts from fanfic100, a collection of short scenes and backstory from my modern retelling 'Company.' To begin with, Erik and the Persian stumble across a strange YouTube video...
1. What?

AN: Based off of the fanfic100 challenge on LJ, these are little backstory drabbles for my modern retelling fic 'Company,' the sort of scenes that come to you when you're sitting in traffic or washing your hair. They don't really do anything to further the plot or aid character development, but they're fun to have around.

**Title: **Of Unicorns and Sanity  
**Fandom: **The Phantom of the Opera; au modern retelling style (I am my own fangirl ::hangs head::)  
**Characters: **Erik, Ahmed  
**Prompt: **077. What?  
**Word Count: **234  
**Rating: **T for Teenage Shennanigans  
**Disclaimer: **Don't own the prompts and I don't own Phantom of the Opera or any of the products, people, places or media referenced in the context of this fic. I'm doing this for fun, not making any profits.

* * *

"...what is this?" Ahmed asked, unable to tear his eyes away from the iPod's tiny screen.

"Isn't it _great_?" Erik asked, eyes shining with excitement. When he did not continue Ahmed realized, to his immense surprise, that the question had not been rhetorical.

"You found this when you were high, didn't you?" This question wasn't rhetorical either, but that was more a matter of Ahmed knowing the answer already, rather than Erik being unable to come up with one.

"Well, yeah," his friend admitted. "But I watched it again this morning and it was still funny – damn it, Ahmed, either pause it or keep watching, you're missing the best part." And then his voice took on a high-pitched, dreamy quality as he quoted in time with the animated mythical beasts on the screen, "Shun the nonbeliever! _Shuuuuuuun!_"

Ahmed was usually willing to humor Erik when he found something amusing on YouTube and wanted to share it with the world. He was usually okay with that and wasn't really concerned five minutes ago when Erik called him Charlie and told him that they were going to Candy Mountain. However, when Erik gleefully informed him that this MS Paint acid trip had a _sequel_ and began singing an oddly catchy song about putting bananas in his ears, Ahmed worried that his best friend had well and truly lost it.


	2. Smell

**Title:** The Inconvenience of Scent  
**Fandom: **PotO on Crack  
**Characters: **Erik  
**Prompt: **036. Smell.  
**Word Count: **392  
**Rating: **MA for Mild Angst  
**Disclaimer: **I don't own Phantom of the Opera or any of the prompts, products, people, places or media referenced in the context of this fic.

* * *

Contrary to popular assumptions, Erik did, in fact, have a sense of smell. Whether it was as good as anyone else's was a question he did not have the answer to. It wasn't like he could borrow someone else's olafactory nerves for a test run, but he could smell most smells that everyone around him endured.

The spicy smell of hot apple cider when his mother decided to exercise her limited culinary ability and broke out the crock bot on crisp fall days.

The crisp metallic tang on the back of your tongue on a winter night that meant it was going to snow soon.

The sweet fragrance of the lilac bushes...trees? Bushes? Well, the lilac whatevers that grew in untamed clusters around the perimeter of the yard; neither of his parents were botanists either.

And, familiar to every kid who grew up a stone's throw from the beach, the salty, briny scent that started small in late spring and became almost overwhelming as the days became longer and warmer.

The smell of salt water at low tide coming off the bay was as much a part of Erik's summer as it was for everyone else. With one noted exception. When the beckoning of the ocean became overwhelming on a blistering hot day, everyone else packed up the car with suntan lotion, towels and boogie boards, ready for a day of fun in the sun. Not being a complete social pariah Erik was, occasionally, asked by well-intentioned friends to come along on these midday adventures. These invitations, of course, had to be declined, first by his mother taking the phone and saying, "Sorry, Erik can't play today," then, gradually by Erik himself.

They came less and less frequently as time went on, either his friends became aware of his condition or they thought he was one of those unfortunate souls who just hated the beach. Still, every once in a while the phone would ring, he'd pick up, there would be an excited voice on the end of the line, someone who didn't know or just forgot. So, with a sigh heard only by himself, Erik would break off the conversation with a curt, "Thanks, but no thanks." Then he closed the windows, shut the door and cranked on the AC, full blast, blocking out the forbidden scent of summer.


	3. Why?

**Title: **Sorelli's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Night/Christine's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Morning  
**Fandom: **PotO on Crack  
**Characters: **Christine, Sorelli  
**Prompt: **080. Why?  
**Word Count: **660  
**Rating: **T+  
**Disclaimer:** Don't own the prompts and I don't own Phantom of the Opera or any of the products, people, places or media referenced in the context of this fic. I'm doing this for fun, not making any profits.

* * *

"_Psst, Christine?_"

No response.

"Christine?"

Nothing.

A final, "Christine!" and a shake of her shoulder managed to rouse the blonde girl from slumber.

Christine squinted up at the figure bending over her bed. For a moment, she had _no_ idea who was trying to wake her up, she had only been at school a few weeks and it was hard to immediately identify shadowed figures in a dark bedroom at six o'clock in the morning. After a second of confused blinking, she recognized the impatient expression as belonging to no one other than Sarah Sorelli.

"Whaduhywan?" Christine mumbled half into her pillow. "Izzadormonfire?"

"Huh?" Sorelli asked, clearly not having the patience for this nonsense. "Uh, no, no fire. Um. I hate to bother you, but I need you to drive me to CVS."

Why, was the only question Christine had. Why, on God's green earth would Sorelli need to go to CVS at six on a Saturday? As if to sweeten the deal, Sorelli added, "I'll buy you breakfast. Please? I don't have my own car."

This was true. Sorelli did not have her own car. But it did not immediately follow that she should expect to use _Christine's _car. "Why?" Christine asked, still not entirely awake.

"Um," Sorelli paused significantly, color rising faintly in her cheeks. "I kinda...need to get some Plan B. That's not against your religion, is it? I mean, you know what it _is, _don't you?"

Honestly, Christine had no idea if the morning after pill was against her religion (it probably was), but even so, she wasn't using it and didn't care. And _why_ did everyone think because she was a regular church-goer, she was also an idiot. She watched _television,_ she watched _Lifetime_ for crying out loud, every other commercial was for Plan B. She didn't even wear a cross necklace since she thought those were tacky, so why had she become the unofficial Mother Theresa of this group?

Sighing, she rolled out of bed and started groping around for the jeans she abandoned the night before. No way she was putting on fresh jeans without a shower. "Birth control failure?" she asked rhetorically, since, yeah, probably a BC fail if Sorelli needed to go to CVS this badly.

"Not...really," Sorelli said, wiping off her smudged makeup, the ultimate sign of a late night out. "Remember that guy I was talking to this week?"

"Ronnie from New Jersey?" Christine asked, recalling the heavily muscled, heavily tanned gentleman she found flipping through _CosmoGirl _while Sorelli got ready to go out on...Tuesday.

"No, this was a different guy, Ryan, he and Ronnie are in the same frat," Sorelli clarified. "We were playing Rock Band and one thing led to another – and he _seemed _normal enough, he really did. Um, but after we...finished and he pulled out, and then, right hand to God, he hunkered down and _yelled _up my vag, 'SWIM BOYS! SWIM FOR YOUR LIVES!' I think he was trying to be funny."

Christine paused mid-way though pulling on a t-shirt, "Um, no. Not funny for you if his little swimmers live. What did you do?"

"Uh, I _left,_" she replied, grabbing her purse and tapping her foot near the door while she waited for Christine to find her car keys. "And walked back. Better to be safe than sorry, I figure. Guys like that might be poking holes in the condoms, you never know."

No, you never did know, Christine supposed. And she supposed that she could take getting awakened at an ungodly hour if it meant Sorelli's peace of mind would be preserved.

Still...she supposed she could be forgiven if, the next time her roommate had a late night out, she too spent the night away from the dorm. Why deprive Meg of the opportunity to be a good Samaritan, after all?


	4. Teammates

AN: I apologize for the distinct lack of updates recently, on all fronts. I just started Grad school, which takes up more time than you'd think it would. Anyway, I promise that a new chapter will be popping up on Company within the fortnight, but in the meantime, here's a little something to tide you over.

**Title: **Captain Jack and the Cybermen  
**Fandom: **Phantom gone cock-eyed  
**Characters: **Freddy, Erik, Ahmed  
**Prompt: **026. Teammates.  
**Word Count: **517  
**Rating: **O for Obnoxious Losers Ruining Trivia  
**Disclaimer: **Don't own the prompts and I don't own Phantom of the Opera or any of the products, people, places or media referenced in the context of this fic. I'm doing this for fun, not making any profits.

* * *

One balmy evening in early August, Freddy abruptly decided that he wanted to bother Sorelli at work. Sorelli was employed during the evening shift at their local Applebee's. The reason for this was three-fold. One: He loved Sorelli. Two: He loved annoying Sorelli. Three: Sorelli didn't card them and Applebee's was the only place they were guaranteed, at the tender age of eighteen, to obtain alcohol.

Of course, drinking alone, illegally, at Applebee's was probably the most pathetic way to spent a Thursday night, so he often dragged his nearest and dearest friends along with him and since Erik and Ahmed had the least pressing social calendars, they were usually available and often amenable. Shocking? Not really. Thursday was Trivia Night and Erik relished any and all opportunities to show off. No matter that the prize was a $25 gift card to a restaurant and he didn't like eating, it was a matter of _pride_.

Their team, (Captain Jack and the Cybermen), usually cleaned up pretty week at Thursday Night Trivia, but tonight their was another team that was giving them a run for their money. This wouldn't normally be such a big deal, but tonight the rival team (The Lady Killas) was doing well. _Really_ well. Far better than a group of five intoxicated 20-somethings should be doing and Erik was prepared to call shenanigans.

"They're using an iPhone!" he hissed angrily to Ahmed over the Appetizer Sampler. After consuming an electric blue beverage with a pineapple slice garnish and a generous shot of SoCo, Ahmed was utterly nonplussed.

"So, just pull out your phone. I mean, how the fuck else are we supposed to know the names of the three kids from _Home Improvement_?"

"Randy, Mark and Brad," Freddy supplied immediately, recording their response on the answer sheet.

"See?" Erik asked, pointing an accusatory finger at Freddy and nearly toppling the mozzarella sticks. "You're just supposed to _know_ shit, look shit up!" This last comment was directed none too subtly at The Lady Killas who, predictably, just glanced at the pissed off teenager behind them and laughed.

"I didn't see any rules that said 'No Phones Allowed,'" one of them replied with a sickening shit-eating grin on his face. The gauntlet had been thrown. It was on. In other words, shit was going _down_.

Shooting his unworthy combatant a withering look, Erik folded his arms and countered, "There doesn't need to be rule, it's an unspoken matter of honor. A gentleman's agreement that crosses gender lines. You don't see people whipping their phones out for Jeopardy."

The drunk guy just sort of blinked at the lanky boy and shook his head. "Whatever. If you don't like the game, maybe you shouldn't play...are you old enough to be drinking?"

"Excuse me, the game is called _trivia_!" Erik exploded, absolutely irate. "Not _research_!" And he was prepared to say much more, but Freddy reached across the table and shook his arms, sacrificing his own sleeve to the spinach-artichoke dip in order to get Erik to shut up.


	5. Friends

Title: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Therapy? aka Chapter 51 and 1/2  
Fandom: Phantom gone long.  
Characters: Erik, Ahmed, Freddy, Meg and Jamie  
Prompt: 021. Friends.  
Word Count: 2,956  
Rating: A for Anatomical Shenanigans (not the dirty kind)  
Disclaimer: I own nothing, nor am I responsible for the weird things that come up in Google searches.

***SPOILERS!*** (for my own work, no less): **The events described in this chapter take place AFTER *CH. 51* in my story _Company_, so READ UP TO THAT *FIRST*, if you haven't already.**

Meanwhile, within the confines of their makeshift Batcave, Erik finally decided he was past caring about his dignity and shuffled out of the bathroom, making a beeline for the bed he claimed as his and face-planting in one of the fluffy, sterile hotel pillows. There was some vague notion flitting about in his head that this would be an awfully comfortable way to asphyxiate himself, but it disappeared before long as the door to their room slammed open and Jamie ran for the bathroom.

A series of highly inappropriate moans echoed out through the metal door and Erik drove his face further into the pillow, trying to block the sound out. Ahmed was puttering around the room, trying to put Meg's rubber cement to good use as she and Freddy slowly re-entered, bearing pizza boxes and apologetic expressions.

"Sorry we started without you," Meg said, setting a box down on the bed beside Erik. "We didn't know how long you'd be and we were starving."

Erik made some muffled sound into the bed that might have been a word at some point and gestured vaguely with his right hand. Somehow, Meg sensed she was forgiven, so she sat down on the bed next to him and proceeded to serve herself another slice of pepperoni. "Did we bring drinks?" she asked anyone who cared to listen.

"Um, no," Ahmed replied, frowning as he tried to figure out how to get the seams to line up and stay that way semi-permanently. And, just for the record, Erik fucking owed him for this. Big time. It's not everyday you find a friend who's willing to glue your fake nose back together after an accident of this magnitude. "I mean, I didn't. There's booze in the car...shit. You know, now that I think of it, it's probably a good thing that the cops didn't really check the damage too closely. I guess my luck's not that bad after all."

Erik took that as a cue to begin humming something that sounded suspiciously like Radiohead's "Karma Police" into the pillow. Meg nudged him with her elbow to make him stop. "Do we have any cups? Because I'll just get water from the bathroom - " Meg thought better of it when her thought was interrupted by another blissful moan from the bathroom. "On the other hand, I'll wait."

"There's a vending machine down the hall," Freddy informed her as he sat on Erik's other side, effectively boxing him in. "Hey buddy," he said affectionately, ruffling his friend's hair. "You want some pizza? You want a soda? I'll get you a soda."

Being a good Catholic boy, Freddy always felt like he had to _do_ something (preferably spend money) for another person in order to obtain forgiveness for his sins. And taunting Erik, however lovingly he'd meant the taunting, was definitely sinful under the circumstances.

Erik shook his head. Freddy's eyebrows knit themselves together. This was incredibly unfair; how was he supposed to start feeling better about himself if Erik didn't let him make it up to him. "C'mon," he tried again in the same jovial tone. "We got buffalo chicken, you _love_ buffalo chicken. And no one's been double-dipping in the bleu cheese. We kept it clean just for you." This may have been a lie, but what Erik didn't know couldn't hurt him.

Erik raised his head a fraction and looked balefully up at Freddy. "No double-dipping?"

"No double dipping," he assured him. "Scout's honor." Not that Freddy had really ever been a Scout, but it was the thought that mattered.

Apparently not to Erik. "Never mind. It doesn't matter. I think I'll just waste away here if you don't mind."

"Actually, I do kind of mind. We have a show to do tomorrow and you have to be in that show," Meg pointed out reasonably. "So you need to get over the self-pity thing, like...ten minutes ago."

"That's _right!_" Freddy said emphatically, pumping a fist into the air for extra oomph. "You just get back on that self-esteem horse and ride into the sunset!"

Ahmed almost nodded at that sentiment and then thought better of it. "That is a terrible metaphor," he said, looking up from his impromptu Arts and Crafts project with a trace of wonder in his voice, as though shocked that his friend could come up with something so ridiculous.

"Shut up," Freddy shot determinedly back at him. "It is a _great_ metaphor and Erik's a _great_ guy and he'll be _great_ tomorrow, even if we have to go to the nearest iParty and make him a nose out of those penis cake molds they sell for bachelorette parties."

"...could we do that?" Ahmed asked, looking down at the nose which he'd placed on a pad of hotel stationary to keep from getting glue all over the desk.

Exasperation stirred the melancholy boy, Erik rolled over and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling to say, "Okay, Thing One and Thing Two, hold it. First of all, Freddy, that was a _stupid_ metaphor and I am _not_ strapping a fake penis to my face and calling it a day." There was a 'dick head' joke somewhere in there, but everyone felt Erik had already suffered enough that day and they collectively decided not to make it.

"You know what we should do?" Jamie interrupted suddenly, appearing from the bathroom with a super-eager look on her face which meant that she experienced some manner of Lightbulb Moment. "We should just say fuck this festival and go to Disney World."

No one really followed her logic on that one and Meg was the first one to say so. "Okay, I love me some Mouse as much as the next gal, but _why?_ Aside from the obvious." Well, perhaps obvious only to Meg. She'd been dreaming of being a Disney Princess since she was five, but to her eternal dismay, the parks started their height requirements at 5'6 and she was on the wrong side of 5'5.

"No, listen," Jamie said excitedly, but uselessly since everyone was listening to her already. "Like, okay, so if you're handicapped, they let you get to the front of the rides automatically, so we'll go and Erik will be there and we're all his friends and so we'll ride the rides with no waiting!" The elated smile on her face was so endearing that no one wanted to be the jackass to crush her dream. It was, of course, Erik who broke the silence (then again, his nose was currently being held together by rubber cement and a prayer, so he had the right to be a little cheesed off).

"Okay, um, two things," he said, naturally he holding up two fingers for extra emphasis (and so people would look at his hands rather than his face). "One, we would all die slow and painful deaths if we took off on a Florida road trip in the middle of the night without telling anyone. Two, I'm pretty sure that rule only applies to people in wheelchairs and, though I might not be pretty, I am capable of walking. I do it very well in fact."

Jamie would not be deterred. "Well, _duh_, but we can _rent_ a wheelchair, people do it all the time! I mean, you're missing a nose, you could be missing a whole _lot _of other things! Like a leg." Now she noticed that the looks on her friends' faces had turned from 'politely puzzled' to 'incredulous.' "What?" she asked defensively. "It could so happen!"

"In Michael Eisner's worst nightmare," Ahmed said, shaking his head and frowning down at his handiwork, giving it a bit of a poke to test its structural integrity. Miraculously the thing held.

"Eisner's not the head of the company anymore, it's Robert Iger," Meg pointed out, like the complete Disney dork she was. "Uh. Because that is a very important thing to know...so...how's the, um, building project coming along, Ahmed?"

"No, really," Erik said, flinging an arm dramatically over his forehead, assuming the usual 'swoon' position of bad news. "It's fine, I don't care. Talk about Disney, talk about Pixar, talk about Paramount, it doesn't matter, I'm screwed."

"Oh hush up, drama boy," Freddy shushed, getting up from the bed to take a look at Ahmed's handiwork. Gingerly, he picked up Erik's nose and squinted at it, turning on the hotel desk lamp for better lighting. "Actually, I think you're good. I mean, you can see the seam if you get _really_ close, but were you seriously planning on making out with anyone this week? I didn't even bring Jenga."

He handed the nose back to Ahmed with compliments on his good work. Hey, if this whole actor thing didn't work out, he might have a chance at scoring a job in the Jim Henson Creature Shop one day. A boy could dream. Glancing over at Erik, he wondered if he should just throw the nose at him, but decided it was still to fragile risk falling apart, but _something_ needed to jostle that kid out of his stupor.

In the end, Ahmed just walked it over to Erik who fit the newly-repaired prosthetic up against his face cautiously. The area around the fissure between his cheekbones wrinkled. If he'd had a real nose to boast about, he would definitely have been scrunching it at this point. "It smells bad," he said mournfully. "I'm going to get high off the fumes and be useless anyway."

"We'll let it air dry on the window until tomorrow," Ahmed replied, reasonably. "And it's not like going high on stage is anything new for you - "

"How do you smell?" Jamie blurted out unexpectedly, again drawing everyone's attention and a stifled giggle from Meg (who had wondered the same thing all her life, but had never been bold enough to ask before). "What?" she asked defensively. "It's a real question! I'm curious."

Though he could have gone the childish route of responding, 'Just fine thank you, but you could use a shower,' Erik did not. Instead he sighed and sat up and replied somewhat wearily, "You don't actually smell with the...this part of your nose." He held the prosthesis up for her perusal since it had apparently become community property in the last fifteen minutes. "You'd know that, if you paid attention during _The Magic School Bus_ you would know this, shame on you – but I'll bet you were a _Lamb Chop's Play-Along_ kind of kid, weren't you?"

Jamie nodded absently, eyes a little wide as she stared openly at the fake nose, searching for evidence that it had been recently repaired. "Pity. But the bony portion of my cranial structure that would attach to the cartilage of the nose is largely intact, as you can see. Whether or not my sense of smell is any more or less acute than anyone else's, I don't know, I've never smelled through anyone else's face before, but I can tell you that the glue Ahmed used smells awful. I do have dry mucus membranes though, but I use saline solution for that. Otherwise I get nosebleeds."

She took a step back at that, clearly thinking that was a bit of an over-share. It's one thing to talk about your sense of smell and another to acquaint your friends with your methods of snot production. "Wait, you use contact stuff on your...non-nose?"

Erik shrugged. "Keeps everything moist and delicious."

Meg shuddered visibly. "Ugh," she said, shaking her head a bit. "I hate the word _moist_, it sounds so disgusting. Seriously, _moist. _Listen. _Moist._ And people use it to describe_ food, _I don't want my food to be _moist, _I want it to be..."

"Yummy?" Freddy supplied. He'd taken out his iPhone a few minutes ago and was now squinting down at the screen with an expression of deep concentration on his face.

"Yes, yummy. Not _moist."_

"I don't mind moist," Ahmed shrugged, sitting on the other bed and handing Erik a piece of buffalo chicken pizza since not eating was clearly out of the question at this point. To his credit, Erik started eating it, but only after Ahmed also handed over the accompanying bleu cheese sauce.

"Hey guys," Freddy said, inserting himself into the no man's land between the two beds, holding out his iPhone, apparently intending to show them all something very interesting and important, "Did you know that if you Google Image the word 'nose,' the eighth thing that comes up is a guy sticking a dildo in his ear?" Indeed, that's what it appeared to be, at least at first glance.

"That's not a dildo," Meg said matter-of-factly, glancing at the high-resolution, but ultimately tiny picture. "That's a finger."

"Yeah, a dildo, shaped like a finger," Freddy said, shoving the phone closer to Meg's face. The dark-haired girl wisely backed away until he was sitting on the bed behind Erik, who looked down at the image and shrugged.

"Looks like a dildo to me," he offered, dipping a piece of pizza into the sauce that had not been in contact with his mouth. It was much more sanitary that way.

Ahmed stood up and looked over Freddy's should to offer his two cents, "I don't know, it looks like a screwdriver, what's that thing on the end?"

"I don't know, but that's what dildos are like, right?" Freddy asked, defensive to the last over his internet findings. "Like...screwdrivers for your vagina."

"Um, excuse you," Jamie said, leaning over to see for herself. "When was the last time you took a screwdriver to your vagina? Dildos are way better."

"Uh, wow, okay, first of all, I was making an _assumption_ and second of all, how do _you _know what that's like for comparison?" Freddy asked, looking at Jamie with a mixture of shock and awe.

"Oh, _please,_" Meg jumped in with a wicked smile, interrupting Jamie before the other girl could dig herself a deeper hole. "You're making assumptions? You? The guy who didn't know where the vagina _was_ for three years of high school?"

_Everyone _laughed at that, and an innocent observer might assume that Meg was kidding until Freddy defensively shouted, "I fell asleep during _The Miracle of Life_! Those diagrams were confusing, I _thought_ it was in the _front_, it would make more _sense_ if it was in the front, you wacky females and your hidden lady-parts."

"You thought it was in the _front?_" Erik shook his head in disbelief, though he'd heard the tale of Freddy's vaginal ignorance many times in the past. "How...how would that even work? Please, enlighten me."

"He thought it was like a second belly button," Meg replied.

"The ultimate innie," Ahmed concluded and everyone dissolved into helpless giggles again, even Erik who almost choked on his mouthful of pizza. If anyone was disturbed at seeing their friend's partially masticated dinner detracting from his already marred countenance, they were too polite to say so.

"Who-who gave you the anatomy lesson again?" Meg asked. "Wasn't it Charlotte?"

"Oh, it so was," Jamie jumped in, always eager to tell a gender!fail story. Or at least a gayboy!fail story. "So, we're sitting around one day – I don't know where the hell _you_ were," she added at Erik. "Probably being emo or whatever, and Charlotte and Freddy are talking about masturbating, like you do at lunch in high school and she's complaining about how guys have it easy and if girls even want to _see _the thing, we have to twist around and get out a hand mirror and it's all very complex and Freddy just looks so confused, and he's all like, 'What? What mirror?' And Charlotte's like, well, yeah, mirror and he's all, 'You mean you can't just...see it?' And she says like, no no, you have to get down and get a mirror – well, if you're like, crazy flexible and have a long neck you might be able to - "

"And then she said that, thing about how girls work down there," Ahmed recalled, grinning deviously at Erik. "The vagina has three main components from top to bottom that operate thusly, 'Oh, I'm happy,' 'Oh, I'm peeing,' 'Oh, I'm having sex.' I'm pretty sure she drew a diagram on a napkin."

"Oh, hang on," Freddy interjected, clearly trying to change the subject from his previous humiliation – the way he found out that the vagina was _not _actually located 'in the front' was a trauma in and of itself that did not bear repeating. "It's not a dildo. It's a nose-hair trimmer."

For some reason, everyone thought this was the _funniest_ thing they heard yet and the hotel room absolutely exploded with laughter, so much so that whoever was housed in the room next door banged on the wall to try and bring about some order. None of the kids heard it, of course, since after an evening of fisticuffs, lost noses and fractured self-esteem, they needed a good release more than anything, certainly more than they needed to deal with bitchy, early-bird neighbors. And through it all, no one thought to ask where Christine had disappeared to.


	6. Choices

Title: Wherein I Very Nearly Pass the Bechdel Test aka Ch. 54 and 1/2  
Fandom: Phantom-inspired.  
Characters: Erik, Meg, Charlotte and wonky!Christine  
Prompt: 086. Choices  
Word Count: 1,932  
Rating: DBC, for Drunken Bad Choices  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. I wish I owned PBS or NPR and could provide funding to eliminate all the annoying fundraisers

***SPOILERS!*** (for my own work, no less): **The events described in this chapter take place AFTER *CH. 54* in my story _Company_, so READ UP TO THAT *FIRST*, if you haven't already.**

"_Every pledge helps!" Raoul said, smiling with blinding white teeth. His hair was so bright blonde, it was like his head was glowing. Like those pictures of Jesus you see in all the Christian stores, a glow rendered in shiny metallic paint all around his head. "What can I put you down for?" A pen and paper materialized in his hands from nowhere. "For a donation of $150.00, we can get you a fantastic DVD of the program you have just seen and if you order by midnight, we promise to cut our first fundraiser of the New Year in HALF. More of the quality programming you've come to expect from your public broadcasting station."_

"_I didn't bring any money," Erik said, reaching into his back pocket, but his wallet wasn't there._

"_What about a flashdrive?" No, it wasn't his hair. His teeth were creating that glow around his entire head. It was nuts, Erik wanted to close his eyes, but they were already closed._

"_Huh?"_

"_This flashdrive contains over 15 hours of _This American Life_, more of the quality programming you've come to expect from your local public broadcasting station. All yours for a small pledge of $22,000.00!"_

"_I don't have a checkbook. I don't have that kind of money on me," Erik said, shaking his head and backing away._

"_The low-low-low donation of $1,800,000.00! _Erik! _More of the quality programming you've come to expect from your NPR member station! _Erik! Erik!_"_

_Raoul's voice had taking on a low, staccato note that was almost menacing. He felt a tug on his arm and he was falling, down, down, down -_

Erik landed with a thump on the floor of the hotel room, totally discombobulated. The television volume was blaring some announcer's voice asking him if he wanted to see more programming from the Great Performances series, but Meg was standing above him, shrouded in darkness, biting her lip.

"Sorry," she said in a stage whisper. "I'm farm strong and you don't weigh much. What are you doing here?"

What _was_ he doing there? More to the point, where was he? The events of the evening came back in pieces, he was cleaning up after the show, he went to his room, he yelled at Raoul, Christine was throwing up in the bathroom, he tucked her in like he was her goddamn grandfather and...well, he must have fallen asleep. "I was sleeping," he said finally, wiping the half-dried spit off his chin. Eurgh, drooling. He was a mouth-breather by nature, but he did try to keep that fact to himself during the daylight hours.

Meg's dark brown eyes were flickering from Erik on the floor to Christine on the bed. "Is she okay?"

Good question. Erik sat up and saw that Christine had slumped over, probably after he fell off the bed since she was leaning on him, but she was fast asleep and had her own drool to deal with. "Yeah, I think she got it out of her system," he said quietly, standing up and looking around the room. "Where's everyone else?"

"Still at the party," Meg said grimly. "I bounced, like, half an hour ago, I was looking for Christine, she was freaking _wasted_."

"No shit," he said, his tone slightly angry. "Why wasn't anyone looking out for her?"

Meg frowned hard at him. "Oh, right, that's just great. You treat her like crap, then swoop in like some white knight and give me shit about not babysitting her better? She's the same age as us, it's not like she can't be expected to look after herself."

"She's not like us," Erik shot back irritably. "She's not an asshole."

Meg's mouth dropped open and for a split second she looked truly, truly hurt. Then her eyes hardened over and she shook her head at him. "Christine was right. You are _such_ an asshole. God, I don't know why I put up with you."

"Well, don't then," Erik said, sweeping past her and making his way toward the door. "No one's asking you to."

Meg almost, _almost_ ran after him, but decided it wasn't worth it. Not at the moment. She'd probably text him in a half hour or so, just so she could be sure he hadn't tried to kill himself (again). Erik was really Ahmed's responsibility, they drew straws about it in third grade. When the door to the room creaked open, she turned, her lips pursed in irritation, but her expression softened when she saw it was Charlotte.

"God, my mouth tastes like ass," the redhaired girl said darkly. She stopped short and lowered her voice when she saw Christine passed out in bed. "Oh, good," she said, relief evident in her tone. "You found her. I was so worried she was getting raped somewhere."

"No, she's fine," Meg said, digging around in her suitcase for a clean shirt and boxers. Even in the depths of winter, she never liked sleeping with lots of material around her legs, it made her feel claustrophobic. She was a little worried that Charlotte's default fear at parties that got out of hand was that someone was going to get raped, but when your best friend was Sorelli, it had a tendency to skew one's perspective of the relationships between men and women. "How are you doing?"

Charlotte rolled her eyes and tied her hair up in a worn-out scrunchie that had to be leftover from 1995. "I'm fine. God, I drank way too much, I don't...I don't know what the hell I was thinking."

"That drinking would lower your inhibitions and ease your social anxiety around the opposite sex?" Meg suggested brightly on her way into the bathroom.

Charlotte removed her sweater dress in one stroke and almost as quickly replaced it with an oversized t-shirt from a dresser drawer. She always slept in a bra, some lady-doctor on _Tyra _said large-busted women should never go braless since it made the inevitable sag occur much more quickly. "Yeah, that must be it," she said, peeling off her boots and leggings and abandoning them on the floor. "Do we have anything scheduled for the morning? Because I'm going to have the world's worst hangover, I can feel it."

Meg had a toothbrush in her mouth and couldn't provide a coherent answer, but apparently Charlotte didn't want one since she went right on talking. "I don't even know where the hell Sorelli is, I think Jamie's crashing with the boys tonight, but...Jesus, it's like she _wants_ me to lecture her. Does she think I enjoy turning into my mother? Newsflash: I don't. Fuck. Does it make me a bad person if I don't brush my teeth? I don't think I'm going to brush...no, I should. Dammit. I can't believe Christine is sleeping through all this, is she sleeping? She's breathing, right? I'm gonna check on her."

Note to self: Charlotte turns into a babbling idiot when she's drunk.

"She's still breathing," Charlotte said unnecessarily, wandering into the bathroom. Fortunately, Meg was on her way out. "God, this trip sucks."

"Yes. Yes it does," Meg agreed, making a bed for herself on the cot. She and Christine had been sharing, but she didn't want to be thrown up on in the middle of the night, so she opted for the safest option. "But it's all over tomorrow." Unlike the rest of her classmates, she had not gotten drunk out of her mind, she'd been running around like a chicken with her head cut off on damage control. Clearly she'd dropped the ball with Sorelli, but she was Charlotte's responsibility; they drew straws freshman year of high school.

Illumination radiated from the pocket of Meg's abandoned jeans, thrown in a heap beside the cot as her pants simultaneously began buzzing. Erik was texting her.

**Want to go swimming?**

If he was any other guy, that might be a sexy invitation at the moment, but being that it was Erik he was probably just inviting her along for a spot of breaking and entering on hotel property.

**no** was her only response. Ahmed was the one who had to talk him down off the ledge. Meg just wanted to go to sleep. Silencing her phone, she turned the TV off with a nudge from her toe and closed her eyes as Charlotte turned off the bathroom light, intent on drifting off to dreamland, when -

"Hey Meg?"

Dammit, Charlotte was _never _this chatty when she was sober. Also, they rarely had heart to hearts, their default mode was to snark about everyone else's crappy decisions. There was an equilibrium in that. "Yeah, Char?"

"Did Erik and Christine have sex?"

Meg shot straight up in bed and looked at Christine's peacefully sleeping form, mind racing a mile a minute. No way. No way they had, Erik was an asshole, but he wasn't _that _asshole and wasn't he gay? She was, like, 90% sure he was gay, despite his protestations. "No!" she said loudly, so loudly that she roused Christine.

"Erik?" she asked sleepily.

"No, hun, it's Meg, go back to sleep, okay? Sorry to wake you up." Christine was snoring softly within moments and Meg's panicky lizard brain response that was kicked up by the words 'Erik' and 'sex' in the same sentence calmed down. No way. When she walked in they were both sleeping in front of public television, there was no culture where that was an appropriate post-coital activity. "Ew, God, no Charlotte. That's so gross."

"It was a totally valid question," she said, moving her pillow to the end of the bed so they could have a heart-to-heart. At least she decided to brush her teeth after all. "He gets all caveman over her. Don't be bitchy to _Christine_, oh, she's such a delicate flower, oh, she's so blonde and cute. It's vomitous."

Meg didn't really see it that way, but whatever. She didn't understand the Erik/Christine dynamic at all, but figured it had something to do with opposites attracting. Christine was low-key, sane and nice, Erik was high-strung, completely whackadoodle and kind of a dick. She probably was into that whole tall, dark mysterious vibe he projected (that was a total crock, as all of his closest friends knew) and he probably thought she was pretty and likely appreciated the fact that she wasn't a completely cynical bitch like the rest of them or an empty-headed Dum-Dum pop like Jamie. Sure, she loved her friends, but she was aware of their shortcomings. "I think they're just friends. I mean, I think Christine and Raoul are kind of a thing and Erik's...well, have you ever known him to go for anyone? At all?"

"Raoul's gay, though, isn't he?" Charlotte asked, face scrunching in confusion. "I mean, he's so far in the closet he's finding Christmas presents and Erik's...got issues. I don't think she should date Erik. He's got way too many issues for her, I don't think she could handle it."

Meg reflected that she was probably right, but you couldn't pay her enough to stay up all night talking about her friends dating. Not for all the tea in China. Goddamn, she needed to sleep. "Char, I'm really not up for this, can we, like drop it 'til tomorrow?"

"Oh," Charlotte said, surprised that Meg wanted to sleep. Then she realized that she was in bed and she also must want to sleep because she was in bed. Logic. "Okay. 'Night, sweetie."

"'Night," Meg mumbled, throwing a pillow over her head for good measure. Not for all the tea in fucking China.


	7. Respect

Title: Raoul Gets a Chapter of His Very Own. Which Was Subsequently Deleted, Poor Guy.  
Fandom: Phantom for Millennials.  
Characters: Raoul  
Prompt: Respect  
Word Count: 1,282  
Rating: IT (Innermost Thoughts)  
Disclaimer: I own nothing, I really wanted to get in Raoul's head for a bit since it's a well-intentioned place, but I couldn't justify putting a character study in the main phic.

***SPOILERS!*: This chapter makes reference to events which take place up to Ch. 55 in my main story Company. READ UP TO THAT FIRST if you have not done so.**

Raoul had been doing some thinking. He'd had plenty of space to do that after the other guys left him alone on the cot in their room. Freddy was kind enough to put a wastebasket next to his head, then he ruffled his hair on the way out the door. Against Erik's advice, he'd signed up for that singing class, but he was so sick from overindulging at last night's party that he just decided to skip out. Weirdly, Erik asked if he could go in his place. It only seemed weird now, after he had a few hours to think about it. At first it made sense, if there was an open spot at the singing class, why not let Erik have it? But then, if he hadn't been planning on going and didn't have sheet music with him, why would he go? And didn't Erik think these classes were pointless?

Erik just didn't make any sense. It was part of his appeal, Raoul figured. He was tall, dark and mysterious. Those were three things Raoul most definitely was not. He was on the short side of average and an open book. There were no deep dark secrets from his past, he didn't have anything to hide, he wasn't that smart, he wasn't that interesting. He tried to be Robin Hood and everyone thought he was Peter Pan. There was probably a metaphor in that, but he wasn't smart enough to work it out.

Hell, he didn't even know if he was straight or gay. Or bi. Or bi-curious or something. And that was just frankly embarrassing. Maybe he was a late bloomer or whatever, but he thought sexuality was something you were supposed to figure out between 12 and 16 when you finally lost your virginity to the gender of your preference. That was what all the health and sexuality books he'd smuggled out of his sisters' rooms during his middle school year said. Raoul just figured his sexuality was as average as the rest of them, but he hadn't actually confirmed it with some appropriately gendered person.

That was actually pretty embarrassing, he reflected as dragged himself out of bed into the shower, taking the wastebasket with him. He just...figured he was straight. He'd kissed girls, he felt up his senior prom date – he tried to do some other stuff too, but she wound up throwing up all over the interior of his car, so he just drove her home. Her name was Lauren and they'd been dating for almost a year, but after the whole second base vomit incident, they drifted. She was going to Suffolk and he kept with with her Facebook status updates, but that was it. The sparkle fizzled, if there'd actually been a spark in the first place.

Then he re-met Christine and he thought, well, maybe they would date. She was pretty, first of all, and so nice. None of the other girls in the program were as nice as her, she listened to him when he talked, like he was saying interesting things. Being the youngest of much older siblings, Raoul knew he was well-loved, but it wasn't like they (and he felt stupid for even thinking the word) respected him. And why would they? His brother was getting a law degree at Georgetown and his eldest sister was married with a kid. What had he done? He was in some plays, he was studying theatre and he lived eighteen years without getting beyond third base.

So yeah, he thought about dating Christine, but even though she was his closest friend, he assumed she was hung up on Erik. Admittedly, at first, he didn't get the guy's appeal. He was sarcastic and distant and rude and...ugly. Raoul wasn't going to say he was the handsomest thing on two legs, but he had good skin and he worked out and Erik was like a broomstick with limbs, his face looked like someone had gone at it with a meat tenderizer and his hair was always a mess.

Then he kissed him and he had no idea what that meant. Obviously nothing to Erik who, though he'd warmed up to him a little bit over the last few months, still acted like Raoul was some kind of stupid puppy that just tagged along after the rest of them. They all acted like that, a little. When Freddy ruffled his hair on the way out, it was just another way of saying that he was the dumb kid brother they looked after and liked, but didn't see as an equal.

It just felt so _good_ and he hadn't been expecting that. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn't kissed anyone since his girlfriend last June (Raoul believed in committed relationships and monogamy), but Erik had this take-charge way about him and did this _thing_ with his tongue and his appeal became a lot more clear after that. Rather than seeing him as sarcastic and acerbic, Raoul started seeing him as smart and _adult_. More adult than he felt like, most of the time.

His mancrush was basically extinguished after the basement freakout of two months ago, though. Even if Erik was smart and a good kisser, he was still crazy and Raoul didn't do crazy. It scared him, way more than it did Christine and his crush on her only increased after she was such a good friend to Erik, she went to visit him in the hospital. Raoul hadn't been able to talk to his grandmother when they visited her in the nursing home before she died. It freaked him out too much. Christine wasn't just pretty and kind, she was brave and he admired her.

Still, he got why she was all hung up on Erik. Crazy he might be, but he was talented and the way he took charge of the gala concert and whipped them all into shape, doing in a few hours what they hadn't accomplished in weeks of rehearsal, he proved that he was worthy of respect. Raoul wanted to be respected, but he didn't know how to be.

He tried last night, when he stood up to Erik about the Christine thing, but the other guy didn't want to hear it. Still...if Erik had a girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever and Christine was mad at him, maybe he could move in on that. Even if Erik had been a blip on his radar, he was still smitten with Christine. Raoul was seriously regretting the fact that he'd confessed his confusion over his sexuality to her that night in the park. If that wasn't sending mixed signals, he didn't know what was. But he thought she liked him a little. Or he might if Erik was no longer an option on the table.

Yes, Raoul had been doing a lot of thinking. As he toweled off, he looked himself over in the mirror. To shave or not to shave? He had a little bit of dark blonde scruff on his chin and cheeks...yeah, leave it. It made him look a little older. Aside from the dark circles under his eyes and his winter chapped lips, he cut a pretty good figure. Maybe he'd check on Christine later, see if she wanted to get some lunch away from everyone else. Then he could use her to figure stuff out –

Oh, hey, wait not _use_ her. She was going through enough stuff without him seeing her as some kind of pathway to adulthood and manly enlightenment. They were both going through stuff. They could just go through it together, rather than separately. That's what relationships were for, right?


End file.
